Project information

Stand Up, Speak Up

The aim is to encourage children and families to Stand Up and Speak Up for others. Reflective learning will include engaging with filmed Holocaust survivors through a new and unique tool Interact. This allows learners to view a filmed Holocaust survivor, ask questions and instantly hear the answer.

Charity information: The National Holocaust Centre and Museum

Need

The problem is negative attitudes and subsequent negative behaviours that some children and their families display towards people who they perceive as different. They may focus on race, disability, religion or a combination of traits. Resulting behaviours include prejudice, discrimination and intimidation. Children for years have had their attitudes positively influenced by listening to Holocaust survivors talk. This will soon be impossible and so alternative methods of engagement are needed.

Solution

Our project will support understanding of difference through a new and unique interactive tool "Interact." Children and families will view an individual Holocaust survivor talking about his or her memories of living through prejudice, discrimination and hate of the most extreme kind. Students will be supported to reflect on issues and events in their own communities and will have the opportunity to ask the virtual survivor questions about how acts of intolerance impacted on their childhood.

Aim 2

Activities

» Developing learning programmes which consider identity, stereotyping and tolerance in our schools and communities » Linking above to the testimony of the 10 survivors accessible via Interact and their childhood experiences of school and community under Nazi rule. » Incorporating activity of asking a virtual survivor questions about their experience of hatred, prejudice and exclusion and its impact on their life

Education programmes which encourage people not to stand by but to take action are developed, piloted and evaluated demonstrating the actions taken by learners

Aim 3

Developing strategy for development, including accessing diverse groups of children and adults

Activities

» identifying potential partners to market the product to schools e.g. national or local government and national agencies such as Teach First
» Identifying partner organisations to market the product to none school youth groups such as uniform organisations or young people's faith groups
» Establishing whether there is a market among adult audiences perhaps as a training tool and

Potential partners and organisations have agreed to use the tool and programmes in their schools and communities

Impact

This project will develop new, high impact learning programmes incorporating "Interact" instead of living survivors. The strength and impact of new programmes will be demonstrated by collecting feedback from children, parents and teachers. The project will also produce programmes to support outreach work with an online version of Interact allowing national reach. Work to date has been Centre based with regional reach. The wider reach of programmes will be demonstrated by monitoring take up.

Risk

Over 20 years the Centre's high impact education programmes have involved audiences interacting with a holocaust survivor. Teachers will have high expectations and given the digital awareness of 10 to 18 year olds' the interactive tool needs to operate at a sophisticated level. This risk will be dealt with by the skill and experience of the educator who will facilitate programmes and who will "control" the microphone through which questions are relayed to the filmed survivor.

Reporting

Donors will be informed of the activities which have taken place and the impact of those activities by an interim and final report which will give numbers of participants, impact on participants and future plans including details of potential partners. These will be distributed in an e news format.

Location

The project is located in rural Nottinghamshire in Laxton near Newark. There are a number of areas nearby experiencing challenges relating to increasingly diverse populations and years of entrenched poverty. Our Director of Education has worked closely with Nottinghamshire's equality and achievement team and their community safety team. This project will support us to broaden our reach across the nation and country. We will pilot some outreach education in addition to work at the Centre.

Beneficiaries

500 pupils and 30 parents will be directly involved in this project. The results of this project will benefit thousands of school children (20,000 visit the Centre each year) and our aim is to reach thousands more through outreach programmes. As survivors have become increasingly frail we have limited their contribution to one session per day usually in the middle of day. This tool will increase our potential beneficiaries both at the Centre and in the community.

Why Us?

The National Holocaust Centre and Museum has 20 years experience of working with Holocaust survivors and witnessing their impact on tens of thousands of children and adults. Our experienced educators are perfectly placed to manage the transition to programmes which are still high in impact, still retain the voices of individual witnesses and still portray living history. The survivors who worked with us have trust in our organisation to use their testimonies to positive effect.